Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Some Sectors to Ponder

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I am late putting up a post tonight, because I attended an absolutely amazing lecture by Jaron Lanier on the Stanford campus. I’ve known about Jaron’s work since I first got into computers 35 years ago, but I had never heard him speak. He’s a straight-up genius. It was just an amazing talk that touched on politics, the economy, and data privacy.

Anyway. Let’s look at a handful of charts.

First is $XOI, the oil and gas sector, which has been my dearest friend all year. The miniature head and shoulders pattern has performed great, and the lowest green horizontal is my target.

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The White Bronco

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Today was an odd combination of boring and annoying, but I managed to eke out a small profit by day’s end. The centerpiece of the lunacy early on was crude oil, which I was excitedly watching crumble last night. In the early morning hours, I glanced at my iPad, and I had a total WTF moment when I saw crude was rocketing higher based on the fact Saudi Arabia, which apparently has joined the rest of the world in believing descending markets should be forbidden, stated they would do everything in their power to reverse oil’s price slide (see arrow mark). Most of that gain unraveled not long after, but then crude gyrated aimlessly the entire day. Oil’s muddy water is even less clear now.

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